Texas style. Big, crunchy toast.

I had a dream the other night that I joined the Kristin Leigh Project as their new drummer (which is ironic, since their drummer was the one who liked our band so much), and then tried to date Kristin Leigh, but she ended up being a huge JAP, and I think she was cheating on me. I don’t know why, I’ve only seen her that one time. At least I’m not having dreams about Eisley anymore. I think the dream was spawned by me trying to get into Imogen Heap, because I for some reason (though they’re really NOT that similar) closely associate Kristin Leigh’s music with that of Imogen Heap.

Another probable dream experience: TOTAL DEJA VU! Tonight I got the “final” (will there ever really be one?) “Don’t Pawn…” mix from Mark, but noticed upon first listen (to check for the minor changes we asked for) that it was missing almost all of the string parts and a good portion of the horn parts. The irony there struck me as severely funny, I wasn’t mad at about it at all, but I did experience hella deja vu right after getting off the phone with him which always trips me out. He obviously just forgot he had them muted when mixing down. I’m getting the song from him tomorrow morning (with the orchestra back!) and we’re going to mix in the orchestral drums we recorded the other day, normalize it, raise the volume a bit, bounce it down and put it out. FINALLY. Lordy, we really dragged our asses on that one, but not entirely on purpose. We’ve all been hit with some difficult stuff lately, I’m really glad we’ve been blessed recently and are going to be able to get bac on track in May. TONS of stuff to track still, but we’ve revamped our schedule a bit to try and combine sessions and limit ourselves on time.

I was reading this article about REM recording their amazing new record Accelerate (my only beef here being that upon reading a certain review I realized just HOW similar the title track sounds to Sonic Youth’s song “Incinerate”, a little hackish, but at least they’re drawing inspiration from another amazing band – it’s not like we don’t do the same thing all the time…) in which they stated that most probably one of the biggest factors in making this record what it was, was that they severely limited themselves time-wise in the studio. Considering their last great album (of many) in my opinion was another “quickly” and disjointedly tracked record (New Adventures in Hi-Fi) I think this works as pretty good philosophy. According to REM, because they forced themselves to get things done and not tinker with a bunch of extraneous sounds, instruments, nitpicky outboard effects, cut/paste, etc. they were able to NOT STRESS out nearly as much and cut a clean and powerful record containing just what they wanted, THAT DIDN’T SOUND MONSTROUSLY OVERTHOUGHT. If you think about it, it makes sense. Hence the schedule change on our end. The last couple months’ stagnancy has been due in large part to us overthinking things and spending too much time “tinkering” with song structures and textures rather than putting ourselves out there and just tracking the darn things. The other day I was talking to Jason who mentioned to me that one of the songs we’re working on sounded stale, and bland, and I thought – it’s because we cut and pasted it together and didn’t just track it right there when our gut was into it. I’ve always been an advocate of writing and tracking simultaneously, I find it always yields the freshest and best results. It’s also eons more quick. So, we’re switching it up a bit.

We also very probably have found our dream mastering engineer, Alan Douches. I must admit, I’m pretty scared about attempting to pronounce his last name, I’m going to have to research it more before I call his office. He’s got it all, though – a sweet catalog of amazing records (Danielson’s Ships, Midlake’s The Trials of Van Occupanther, Pedro the Lion, Ester Drang, The Dismemberment Plan – the list goes ON…) and an affordable price tag, considering our other front runner, Stuart Hawkes, deals in pounds sterling which are worth twice as much as dollars right now… I figure I’ll give Alan a call when we’re about done with the second record this year and just have him master the both at the same time. Lucky for us, we’re all pretty well agreed on taking Kramer up on his offer to mix and produce it. What a nice guy, and what an amazing opportunity! I hope someone ends up liking our music, because we’re sparing no expense and being SERIOUSLY blessed with opportunities to work with GREAT PEOPLE. Next step: blogs and labels. Brandy says she’s going to help come up with solid PR/marketing plan at least for the NYC area. I think she was really excited by our national coverage in Redefine Magazine. I’m just glad we finally have something like that to show her. I love Brandy a lot, and if the opportunity is there for us to be successful, I want her to have a part in that success. We are VERY fortunate to have good, rewarding personal relationships with pretty much everyone we work with, music-wise and business-wise. And I’ll take this time to officially welcome Kim on cello.

This is turning into a novel. I’ve been riding my bike A LOT. I’ve broken the wall and decided that, hey, even though I don’t have a car at this moment in time I still have a responsibility to be independent – at least as independent as possible. And I really deeply enjoy riding a bicycle. Just the sheer fact that it doesn’t use gasoline makes me feel extra good inside. I’m pretty slim still, but my legs are getting buffed out. I can now make the ride between my house and church, and really all over most of Plano in less than an hour and with minimal strain and sweat. Tonight I rode to church to play drums for a women’s conference, then to Marshal’s, then home, then Scott’s, then home, then Scott’s – and I’m not totally bushed. I’ve found that even though it’s tougher, being in a more difficult gear is worth it bang-for-your-buck-wise. I’ll be heading down to my new job at American Apparel via bike, bus, and train.

I’ve decided to give a queue of your favorites another go. I never didn’t like what you played for me, I just don’t think I heard enough of it, especially since now I’m really getting into some of it. I have mixed opinions on The Format, particularly Dog Problems but overall it’s a pretty well-arranged and uber-creative record. Particularly the strings/woodwinds during “I’m Actual”. Freaking amazing and totally unexpected, and yes, a little cheesy and over the top, but that’s the point! Copeland is turning out to be even better. I got Eat, Sleep, Repeat and have been super impressed so far. I love their use of mallet percussion! Very Aloha-ish. Makes me wonder what the hell happened to Macha. Note: get some Macha. Copeland’s drummer is pretty awesome, and isn’t afraid to get syncopated and throw some jazz elements into the mix, which is refreshing for a post-emo-pop band. I’m kind of surprised you like it so much based on that, but I still haven’t heard their whole catalog and I’m not sure which records you do and don’t have. Shiny Toy Guns kind of sounds like a hacked off version of Ladytron, but in the spirit of things did make me bust out my New Order and Human League records. I’ve been on a little bit of an electro-clash kick lately, Chicks on Speed’s 99 Cents and the My Dance EP by Lolita Strap regularly populating my Winamp playlist. Apparently the LS EP is super rare, which kind of sucks, and also means I should probably own it on vinyl. Ultimately, for the kind of stuff you like, which is VERY much your generation in a way, you like a decent slice of the cream of the crop. Or surprising diamonds in the rough.

You know me, though, I’ll eternally wish the lyrical content was less present and more ambiguous, heady, and more of a visual patchwork than a literal story line. It’s the same way I like my poetry; I’ll cash in the pentameter for some free-flowing beat or abstract musings.